Die Selbstmörder

Die Selbstmörder ("The Suicide") is the German title of a 1928 play by Soviet dramatist and screenwriter Nikolai R. Erdman [1] (1900-1970).

Originally written in Russian and called Самоубийца

The original text

A satire about a young, unemployed man desperate enough to contemplate ending it all, and is besieged by spokespeople of discontented groups of society, from butchers to intellectuals, who want him to turn his suicide into a gesture on their behalf. The play forms a link in Russian literary history between the satirical mastery of Nikolai Gogol and the post-World War II Theatre of the Absurd.

Originally written in 1928 under the title Самоубийца, it was advertised for production by Meyerhold at the Wachtangow Theatre in Moscow, but was banned by the Soviet government and remained unproduced in Russia until 1990.

Originally planned for production by Meyerhold at the Wachtangow Theatre in Moscow, in 1929, under the direction of Meyerhold, the play was but censorship prevented it from happening. In 1990 Sergey Zhenovach finally directed the original Russian text at The Theatre Art Studio in Moscow.

The play actually had its first premiere in the German version, performed in Göteborg, Sweden, in 1969, followed by a production in Switzerland.

Translations and adaptations

Made into a TV film in 1971, directed by August Everding, the German translation by Ingeborg Gampert.[2]

Translated into Afrikaans from the German (Die Selbstmörder) by André P. Brink, entitled Die Selfmoordenaar (1973).

Translated as into English as The Suicide by Peter Tegel and premiered by the Royal Shakespeare Company at The Other Place, Stratford, on June 13, 1979.